The subject invention pertains to the area of dental hygiene and implements that are used to maintain dental hygiene. Most particularly, the subject invention relates to dental hygiene devices such as toothbrushes used to clean teeth and adjacent gum areas.
Toothbrushes have been used for dental cleansing over several centuries and generally have comprised an elongated handle member with brush bristles extending out from a portion of the handle member, with such bristles being used to brush teeth for cleaning purposes. In the conventional toothbrush structure, a plurality of bristles are generally arranged in a mutually parallel manner and are affixed to the handle member to extend outwardly from an end portion of the handle member. In the most usual structural arrangement, these bristles extend outwardly to the same linear extent, creating a relatively flat outer brush surface at such bristle ends.
Other toothbrush structures have brush bristles of varying length, with varying bristle lengths disposed in groups over the array of bristles.
Other variant arrangements of toothbrush bristles exist in the prior art, some of which are commercially exploited.
However, none of the toothbrush structures in existing or previous arrangements are sufficiently structured as an aid in the brushing and cleansing of back surface areas those portions of the teeth that face towards the back of the mouth or interior surface areas of the teeth. Specifically, standard toothbrushes, with relative parallel brush bistles are relatively ineffective in reaching all the interior surface areas of the teeth.
As a consequence of the foregoing, the improved toothbrush as contemplated herein, is conceived to overcome these problems and provide a more efficient tooth cleaning device, and the following objects of the subject invention are conceived accordingly.